


Fade to Black

by red_river



Series: The Other Guardian [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Musing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 18:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_river/pseuds/red_river
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Dean back from Hell, Sam's world should be in one piece again. But somehow none of the pieces fit the way they used to. Sam isn't sure if it's Dean or himself who's wrong - or if it all just comes down to the fact that there's an angel halfway across the dark room, and he's not there for Sam. Sam-centric; mild AU. Part of the Other Guardian 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade to Black

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is the second story in The Other Guardian 'verse, a mild AU/canon divergence. There's a detailed note about the 'verse on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.
> 
> This story follows "I Shall Not Want" but it isn't necessary to read that fic first. Sam centric, with focus on trying to find his balance in his relationship with Dean, now that his brother is back from Hell, and on this new strange and unexpected being called Castiel.
> 
> Also, 90% of this story was written by my friend AccidentaLeft, who is co-authoring this 'verse with me.

Sam’s circadian rhythms were all off, leaving him with long nights of staring at the ceiling of the motel room in the semi-darkness and listening to Dean breathe and snort and snore.  Sounds that had once annoyed Sam but now seemed comforting and familiar.  Sometimes he still forgot that he wasn’t alone, walked into a restaurant a little ahead of Dean and headed straight for the bar instead of getting a booth, tried to get in the driver’s side of the Impala so often Dean was threatening to make him sit in the back.  But not in moments like this, when Dean’s noisy breathing filled all of the small space.

 _Man you sleep like a warthog, dude_ , a younger Sam with curly hair and a headache groused, throwing his pillow across the bed.  Still sleep-hazed with hair sticking up at all angles, Dean caught the pillow easily.  _Oh, Sammy._ His grin was devilish.  _You shouldn’t start something you can’t finish._ Then the pillow was hurling back, followed by his kamikaze brother yelling _Pillow fight!_

The memory brought a smile to his face, and he turned in his bed to stare across the space to the dingy lump he knew was his brother in the other bed, back with Sam, snorts and all.  There was a certain shiver inside of him whenever he thought about Dean being back, maybe because the word _back_ always had a gaping hole in front of it called _gone_.  Sam shifted farther down in his blankets, curling one hand into the pillow under his head. 

He really needed to sleep.  Dean had already told him point-blank he looked like a raccoon that had been punched in both eyes, and Sam wasn’t eager to find out what colorful description came after that one.  He hadn’t yet managed to drift off when he heard a strange sound, almost like a flutter of wings.  His heart tensed up for a moment as he mind easily located the closest weapons: knife under pillow, gun in drawer of bedside table, salt and iron in duffle on the floor.

Dean sucked in a breath that was more of a grunt, coming to wakefulness, and Sam cracked his eyes open.  The sight that met him should have been relieving, but instead Sam found his muscles knotting for an entirely different reason.

Moonlight spilled through the gap in the curtains, illuminating the dark hair and tan trench coat of the figure by the foot of Dean’s bed.  _Castiel._   The name was a whisper even inside his own head, and Sam just closed his eyes, remaining as still as possible even as he heard his brother cursing and moving around, hissed words like _fucking time and a place_ and _need a damn heavenly snooze button_ managing to reach Sam across the room.  Dean’s indoor voice wasn’t nearly as quiet as he thought it was.

Years of living practically in each other’s hip pockets meant that Sam could feel the moment his brother’s eyes turned to him, a lull taking over the whispered sounds, and the tall hunter forced himself to remain completely still, taking slow, even breaths through his nose. 

Then Dean spoke, low and soft:  “I’d rather not wake Sleeping Beauty…well, maybe not such a beauty…”  He heard footsteps, and maybe the sound of the wooden chair scraping against the tight weave of the carpet.  There was no echoing of a second chair.

Sam risked cracking his eyes open.  Dean was all the way across the room now, facing the door, one finger raised accusingly at the angel as he said something.  Castiel stood across the table staring at his brother, possibly waiting for a chance to say something, which if Sam weren’t pretending he was asleep he would warn the other man wasn’t coming for a while, if the set of his brother’s shoulders was anything to go by.  Sam caught himself as Castiel shook his head as though to be rid an unwanted pest. The other _man_ was an angel, and he certainly didn’t want Sam’s help.

Castiel’s gaze darted to Sam for a moment, and though the tall hunter let his eyelids slide closed, keeping them pressed tightly to his cheeks, he was suddenly struck by the thought that the angel had probably known he was awake all this time.  So Cas knew that Sam wasn’t really sleeping, and now Sam knew that Cas knew.  Part of him said this was stupid since the charade certainly wasn’t for Dean’s benefit, but a more cowardly part of Sam refused to open his eyes again.

Maybe Dean was telling Cas off for the fact that all angels were dicks, like he had threatened to do on Sam’s behalf through a mouthful of Twizzlers.  And Sam honestly wasn’t sure how that made him feel; warm in a way that he hadn’t felt for four straight months, but also empty, because there was an angel halfway across the dark room and he wasn’t there for Sam. 

 

~0~

 

Dean didn’t say anything about the angel that had been in their hotel the night before, so Sam didn’t either.  He just ordered a Venti Triple Red-Eye, and a coffee for Dean, and swung by the corner diner his brother had taken a liking to for some sort of egg-sausage omelet that looked so oily Sam was tempted to ask if he could have his with the grease on the side.  In the end, he just paid, tipped, smiled politely at the forty-some-year-old waitress who had been trying to chat him up, and set the white foam containers in the passenger seat. 

It was strangely calming to be behind the wheel of the Impala.  Now that Dean was back, he had taken to driving almost exclusively, and in truth Sam was happy, because the passenger seat— _where the occupant was expected to shut his cakehole about the music_ —felt like home more than anything else.  Still the itch was there, the strange restless feeling in Sam’s chest that made him ask five times a day whether Dean wanted him to take over driving even though he didn’t want to at all.

Luckily Dean seemed to have the same opinion about Sam at the wheel of his car as he had always held: _Dream on, Sammy, me and my baby just got back together—and after what you did to her..._ Then he would fondle the tape deck he had reinstalled—though he later denied he did any such thing.  And it was all so familiar that Sam loved it—even though he still insisted that the iPod could have played his brother’s music just as easily, and certainly more smoothly. 

Dean didn’t want new, though, or different; he wanted the same, and while Sam wasn’t sure that was really possible, he didn’t mind trying.  They were both just going to have cut each other a little slack.  The thought of Dean yelling at an angel for him suddenly flitted through Sam’s mind, and he found himself leaning a little on the gas pedal, pushing the speed limit on the almost empty street.  The more he thought about it, the more childish he felt for pretending to be asleep.  He wasn’t nine anymore, and avoiding Dean’s guardian angel for the rest of his life was ridiculous.  So was coming between them.

 _Having a staring problem, Sam?_ Teenage Dean was in the black leather jacket of their father’s that he had yet to grow into.  The stick of a lollipop stuck from the corner of his mouth, and he twirled it absently, leaning against a wall that had been plastered with construction paper pumpkins and ghosts with bad Halloween poems on them.  Sam’s name was up there somewhere.  At fifteen Dean had found a pretty blond girl to take to the school Halloween dance.  Sam wasn’t technically old enough to go, but Dean brought him and left him by the punch bowl anyway. 

 _No_.  Sam scowled at his brother, looking away into the chaos of dancers in the gym.  One group of primarily scarecrows broke out into a flash mob as the Monster Mash started blaring through the speakers.

It was a lie, though.  Sam didn’t usually care about Dean’s dates, but Lindsey had come as an angel—and not the naughty angel Dean had been hoping for.  The hem of her long white dress dipped as she spun, the skirt rising, and the fake white feathers dusted with glitter sparkled under the light.  A headband held her bangs away from her face with silver wires that suspended a gold halo over her head.  And it wasn’t because she was beautiful, or even because she thought Sam was adorable and let him tag along and ruin the rest of Dean’s date.  It was because she looked like the old cracked picture of the blond woman Sam had been told was his mother.

Sam scrubbed a hand over his face as he pulled into the parking lot.  Dean’s head popped into the window as Sam cut the engine, and a moment later his brother appeared at the door, holding it open. 

“People are hungry, Sam!” he yelled into the lot, making Sam wince and wonder whether they would really be welcome here for the whole week they had booked. 

Hands laden with the almost-too-hot foam containers and the stacked coffees, Sam made his way to the room.  Dean eagerly took the food from his hands, then stopped, blocking the doorway as he studied Sam with a critical eye.

“Dude, I have two words for your pale, unsleeping ass.  Alice Cooper.”

 

~0~

 

It took all the willpower Sam had not to make an excuse and duck out when his brother started calling for Castiel.  Apparently the angel had warned Dean that he and Sam were pretty high on the demon hit list these days, and after a freak dry lightning storm right above the city they were in, his brother was on edge.  That was something else different that they didn’t talk about.

Dean had kindly taken to calling Sam _Alice_ for the rest of the day— _because it just works as an insult in so many ways_.  And the tall hunter had been eager for something else to catch his brother’s attention—demonic omens hadn’t been the top of the list, but he also hadn’t heard a girl’s name hurled at him in the last hour, so Sam decided to count his blessings.

Castiel coming at his brother’s yell was a hard one to decide what to do with.  Angels had to be among the blessings, he supposed, even though he couldn’t bring himself to look this particular blessing in the eye. 

Dean and Castiel exchanged what passed for greetings, which was the angel saying his brother’s name in that low deadpan and his brother hurling a few insults.  They reminded Sam of a pair of friends he’d had at Stanford, Casey Foley and Casey Greene.  One was top of the class, the other sort of dead middle, but from day one people had mixed them up, teachers had confused their papers, packages had been delivered wrong, and so the pair had started a relationship of mutually assured destruction that somehow became a friendship.

Dean was telling Cas about the dry lighting and asking him to use his super ESP angel powers to divine whether it was demons or not.  Between the slang and the demanding way that his brother had of phrasing his requests, Sam wasn’t sure how much Castiel actually comprehended, but he understood only too well the pinched expression on the angel’s face.  It was one that he himself wore constantly, and one he had seen on others enough times to recognize when Dean was wearing on somebody’s patience.  Castiel, it seemed, had a low threshold.

“Cas,” Sam broke suddenly into the conversation, swallowing when two sets of eyes turned to him.  “We’re just trying to be careful of the demons you told…us about.”  He tripped on the pronoun for a moment. “But if you’re too busy…”  Cas stared at Sam for an undying moment, and then a frown slid over his face that had Sam studying the crude knots of his shoelaces. 

“There is a cold front coming in.” 

Sam glanced up sharply as the frown disappeared from the angel’s face and he pinned Sam with a look. 

“What?” Dean blinked a few times, drawing Cas’s annoyed gaze to focus on him, and this time Sam thought he could almost see the irritation spike in the angel, as though he knew exactly who was wasting him time. 

“There are no demons,” Castiel said, “There is a cold front.” And then he was just gone, and even though the whoosh wasn’t really any different Sam thought it sounded more like _ruffled_ feathers this time.  Something like a smile played at the corner of his mouth. 

“Something funny there, Alice?” Dean wanted to know.  Sam winced a little at the return of the nickname. 

“I think he’s already sick of you,” Sam told his brother, gesturing to the sky. “Dude, you just tried the patience of an angel.”

“Why don’t you shut up and take a nap, Alice?” Dean suggested, using his foot to kick the atlas they had been studying to the floor, and reaching for the remote.

 

~0~

 

Sam fingered the plastic bag in his hands, pausing on the stone steps that led up to the church.  Light twinkled from behind the high windows and flickered from beneath the tall door.  The hunter shuffled his feet a little before taking the steps slowly.  There was no service going on, he reminded himself, and despite the certain anxiety that remained stubbornly in his stomach, it wasn’t really possible to interrupt God.  At least, Sam really hoped not. 

Castiel, on the other hand, was obviously a busy person, and not very used to the idea of prayers, questions, or requests of any kind.  And while Sam too found himself fed up with Dean sometimes, and could sympathize with the angel’s abrupt departure at being asked to get them a pizza, he didn’t really think Dean had been completely out of line wanting to know when the dark, painful-looking handprint would disappear from his shoulder.

Maybe there had been more to the conversation than the little Sam had walked in on coming back from the 7-11 on the corner with laundry detergent and a roll of quarters.  It pretty much sounded like Dean quickly approaching the end of his rope, which admittedly was less Castiel’s fault than the usual restlessness that accompanied his fifth straight day in the same location with no case, and the angel giving him a warning stare that seemed to be electrifying the air at the perceived ungratefulness. 

Dean had thrown his arms up and headed off to find a bar and a sucker to hustle, while Castiel went poof.  Sam had told his brother he was going for a walk, ignoring the raised eyebrows.  And he _had_ walked to the store to pick up what he would need.  There might have been a time when he had to talk to Dean, hit him up for a few dollars, but that was just another difference.  Sam had his own money now.

The bag rustled against his leg as Sam pushed the door to the tall church open.  The entire room was bathed in the warm glow of dim lights, the sliver of the moon outside backlighting the stained glass.  The vaulted ceilings were a mass of shadows softly bleeding into one another, and beyond the rows and rows of wooden pews was a mass of flickering lights. 

Sam was not the only one in the church.  A pair of women were sitting in a row midway down the aisle, a figure in a thick coat stood before a small statue of Mary, and the black-clad father tended to the dozens of candles glittering at the far end of the church.  Sam made his way over, lifting the plastic bag to keep it from crinkling against his jeans.  He stopped in the darkened apse in front of a high table draped with a red tablecloth.  A few tall candles burned on the table, making Sam’s skin a dusky color.  As quickly as he could Sam pulled the box of candles and book of matches from the bag, crumpling the plastic and stuffing it deep into his pocket.

Sam wasn’t really sure what he was doing here, wasn’t really sure he belonged here, even now—or was it especially now?—but he hadn’t been able to get the image of the church out of his mind.  Some part of him knew that he didn’t have the right kind of candles, didn’t even know what denomination of church he was in.  It didn’t stop him from tearing a match out of the little matchbook and striking it across the brown strip.  Immediately he could feel the fire licking toward his fingers.  Sam lit the first candle.

He had some sense that the candles were lit for those lost; that there was a certain tragedy to the man in the coat holding two candles in front of the statue of Mary, watching as they burned down in his hands.  He reached into the brown cardboard box, pulling out another candle and setting it next to the first.  The match had burned out in his hands and Sam had to light another, and another.  There were so many.

Sam lined up all the candles that he had.  The small flames gleamed, illuminating the bronze candlestick holders, drips of wax falling against the red tablecloth, and somehow even with the cardboard box empty in his hands it seemed pathetically insignificant. 

No matter how many candles Sam lit, he would still be in darkness.

 _Did I get it?_ Sam could feel sweat beaded on his forehead and wetness on his lips that tasted like copper.  His nose was bleeding again, but it was nothing compared to the pain in his skull, the white-hot flashes that made him feel like his eyes were being burned out from the inside.  _That demon is on a one-way trip to hell,_ Ruby assured him.  The warehouse was dark; Sam couldn’t keep himself from sliding down as the rotting boards crackled under his weight.  Dark spots danced in front of his eyes and his hand came up, unconsciously smearing the blood across his face.  He tried to reach for the body of the blond girl slumped on the dirty ground.  Ruby’s boots crunched against glass, and then she was pushing Sam up, shouldering some of his weight with a shove.  _You saved her, Sam._   And that was something.

Or it had been.  Sam didn’t have to light a candle for her, for any of the people he had saved, but somehow all those unlit candles had become a darkness pulling him down as the twinkling lights grew further and further away. 

The memory of Castiel’s hands was still warm, maybe because he was an angel, and Sam realized he couldn’t spend the rest of his life running from that moment, because that would be tantamount to running from himself.

 _Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood_ , Castiel had named him, and it wasn’t a judgment, it was a truth.  A truth like the candles burning down in front of him, a truth like the things that he had done that couldn’t be taken back.  A truth like a blond girl walking around out there somewhere, maybe falling in love, maybe sitting in church, or choosing to be an angel for Halloween.

Sam stayed where he was until the candles burned out. 

 

~0~

 

Sam had stayed out longer than he intended, and when he stumbled into the hotel room Dean was already back.  He had his phone up to his ear as Sam entered, and for a moment the tall hunter wondered who he could be calling.  The glare his brother sent him as he spun to face the door, coupled with the way he hung up his phone, tossing it aside, gave Sam a pretty good idea.

He had turned his phone off in the church out of respect, and honestly he hadn’t considered the possibility of Dean beating him back.  It was either much later than Sam had thought or his brother had been forced to call it an early night. 

“Sam!” his brother accused, dragging one hand through his hair and making it stand on end. “Where were you?” And it might have been slightly comical, this strange reversal of their normal roles, had Sam not been suddenly sure that it was very, very late.

“I was just walking…” he replied quietly, shrugging off his coat. 

“What, to the next town over?” Dean demanded.

“I didn’t think you’d be back.” Sam kicked off his shoes, letting them fall into a pile and not bothering to line them up.

“Well then, by all means, do whatever the hell you want, huh, Sam!” Dean shouted sarcastically.  Sam didn’t know why he felt so drained, but he knew he didn’t have the energy for this.

“Dean,” he began, facing the angry green eyes that had fixed on him.  Whatever he was going to say evaporated in the face of that look.  Sam sighed heavily.  “I guess I just got used to the idea that no one was waiting for me.” The anger deflated from his brother immediately, and Sam felt guilty for taking the easy way out.  He had known that would stop Dean, put a bump in the perfect road back to the way things were. 

Dean was looking at him now with a slightly lost expression.  Sam felt a prickle behind his eyes.

“I’m just tired, Dean,” he told his brother, trying to somehow make him understand.  Dean shook his head.

“Turns out the only cure for that is sleep, Sammy.”

And he wanted to sleep, he really did.  Sam climbed into a hot shower, trying to melt all the thoughts away.  It only sort of worked, and Sam was ridiculously grateful to find Dean waiting for him outside of the bathroom with a pair of white capsules that looked like Tylenol and a glass of water.

“We are going to talk about this,” Dean warned.  His brother had changed into a pair of flannel drawstring pants and a gray t-shirt.  Sam nodded, swallowing both pills at the same time, and knocking back half the glass of water.

Dean was watching him carefully, and Sam was suddenly struck with the desire to stick his tongue out at his brother, a habit from much, much younger days.

 _I don’t want to take it!_   Eight-year-old Sam was adamant, and quick, despite the flu that had laid him up for days now.  They were in a tiny studio apartment with almost no furniture and three sleeping bags spread across the floor on camping pads.  Being tackled by Dean did nothing to improve his sloshing stomach, and he was yelling _I’m gonna be sick_ the entire way his brother carried him to the bathroom.  Dean was waiting in the doorway with a glass of water and the nasty pills when he was finished.  His brother showed no signs of moving, and finally Sam stuck out a hand, waving it up and down impatiently.  He felt better for just a second, having thrown up, but he had no idea how long it would last.

 _Fine,_ he told his brother, taking the pills and the glass.  Dean watched him skeptically, and Sam glared back over the top of the plastic cup.  _Did you really take them?_ His brother wanted to know, and in fairness to his suspicion, Sam had been spitting his medicine into the sink for the last three days.  The sick boy nodded petulantly.  _Show me your mouth_ , Dean demanded, and so Sam did.  He opened his mouth as wide as it would go, sticking out his tongue.  _Nyaaaaaaaaaah!_

Sam hadn’t entirely dismissed the idea of sticking out his tongue now as Dean continued to watch him as he set down the glass.  He turned to tell his brother thathe was _fine,_ or maybe that _staring was a bad habit,_ but as soon as he had spun he realized exactly why Dean was still staring.

The whole world was becoming fuzzy in front of his eyes, and his limbs felt suddenly heavy, sending him sliding toward the floor.  Then Dean was there, saying something to him, in much the same tone he had in Sam’s memory, and all the tall hunter could think was that whatever he had taken probably wasn’t Tylenol.

 

~0~

 

Sam felt like he was drifting, disconnected from his thoughts.  He had the vague sense that he was lying somewhere, that maybe the darkness wasn’t just behind his eyes, but he couldn’t even seem to manage to hold onto that thought.   There were voices, though, nigglingly familiar voices that brought him closer to consciousness.

“There is nothing wrong with him, Dean,” said a soft, low voice.  _Castiel_ , he realized.  His brother had called his guardian angel.

“Well, fuck that diagnoses,” his brother bit back, and Sam could imagine that half-angry, half-worried expression pinching his face.  “He’s not sleeping Cas, like almost not at all.”  There was another long silence that made Sam wonder what Castiel was doing; he couldn’t quite imagine the angel’s expression or place the strange note in his tone.

“I am telling you that there is nothing wrong with him,” he repeated firmly.

“Oh, yeah, so not sleeping—that seems totally normal to you?” Sam heard shuffling steps, and a soft brush that must have been Castiel’s trench coat against the side of the bed.

“I don’t know,” the angel admitted after a long pause, and Sam finally realized what the difference in his tone was.  It was uncertainty.

“You don’t know?” Dean demanded incredulously.  Sam could sense the restrained anger in his brother’s voice, and suddenly he wanted to wake up, to interrupt, because uncertainty was something that Sam understood intimately.  It just wasn’t something he had ever expected from an angel.

But maybe that was the problem.  Sam had prejudged Castiel as much as the man had prejudged him—Castiel, angel of the Lord.  And maybe that was what he was, but it wasn’t necessarily _who_ he was, any more than Sam was the boy with the demon blood.

He tried to swallow.  Tried to force his eyes open against the weight that held them down, and he must have accomplished something, because there was a sudden movement, followed by the clatter of something hitting the floor and a curse from Dean.

“He shouldn’t be waking up,” the hunter muttered.

“I will put him back to sleep.” That was the last thing Sam heard before he felt warm fingers against his temple—and it wasn’t a handshake, and it was possible that Castiel was only here because Dean had begged, pleaded, threatened him, but he was here and that gave Sam hope he hadn’t held before.  Dean still cared enough about him to drug him behind his back, and Dean’s guardian angel was very awkward and maybe a lot more human than Sam had given him credit for.

This time there was no dizziness, no confusion—just the welcoming embrace of sleep, and Sam totally relaxed for the first time since Dean had gone to Hell, ready to meet whoever was by his bedside when he awoke.

 

~0~

 

“Hey, looking better, Alice.”

Sam looked over his shoulder from where he was standing at the edge of the parking lot, the tips of his sneakers teasing a patch of dirty snow.  Behind him, Dean stood in the doorway of the motel room, twirling the Impala’s keys around one finger.

“Well, that’s what happens when someone knocks you out with horse tranquilizers,” Sam replied.  He couldn’t help his smile, though—honestly, didn’t even want to.

“I admit nothing,” Dean said.  He stepped out and let the door snap shut behind him, a duffle bag swinging from his shoulder.  “Ready to hit the road?” he asked, and for maybe the first time in their lives Sam felt like his brother was really asking, really would have stayed parked in this town, losing it to cabin fever, if Sam asked him to.  But that wasn’t what he wanted either, not anymore.

“Yeah,” Sam said, and meant it.  And this time when he walked to the car, he found himself at the passenger-side door without even thinking about it.  For some reason that made him smile way too wide.

“What was in your coffee this morning?” Dean grumbled, cranking the keys in the ignition.  But Sam could hear the grin in his brother’s voice, too.  And as they pulled out of the parking lot, the tires hissing in puddles of melting snow, Sam leaned his head against his reflection in the window and thought for the first time that maybe they were going to be okay after all, him and Dean, him and himself.  Him and the memory of warm, soft hands.  Dean gunned it and Sam surrendered his weight to the glass, happy just to be along for the ride.

 

~0~

 

From the roof of the silent hotel, his black shoes stark against the snow-encrusted shingles, Castiel watched the Winchesters climb into their vehicle, the snap of each car door against the chill morning air as decisive as a bone breaking.  He narrowed his eyes at the figure in the passenger seat, listening without effort or intention to every infinitesimal noise of their departure: the surge of the engine and the rasp of the keys swinging against the dashboard, the rattle of old windows as Sam Winchester leaned into the glass, his heart flickering beneath the armor of his ribs.  The beat was stronger, faster today than it had been when Castiel stood above the sprawl of his unconscious form the night before, searching for idiosyncrasies in this infinitely knowable being, searching for the reason Dean Winchester stood at his back, bristling.

 _What do you mean, you don’t know?  How can you not know?_   His tone had been derisive, enraged, and of course frightened, man’s basest nature, which manifested so often in Dean Winchester as a curling sneer.  _Wow—fantastic.  Good thing I have a guardian angel to pop down and tell me jack shit.  You better hope you don’t get paid on commission._

Castiel looked down at Dean Winchester, his hands loose around the steering wheel, and remembered them clenched in the dark as he stared back into those shadowed green eyes, back at this being he knew the whole measure of.  He had carried this man out of damnation, his soul still raw with the burn of eternal flame, his hands rough from the leather of the bloodsoaked flail—and Dean Winchester was impatient with him.  The ingratitude was grating.

And yet.

Castiel watched the Impala’s tires crunch against the snow with a furrowed brow.  Why hadn’t he known?  What was there not to know?  He understood every facet of the human machine, understood better even than they did the rhythms that kept them alive—the beating heart, the squeeze of lungs, the rush of blood mapping every vein.  He could see the souls coiled beneath their skin.  And somehow, he did not know.

It was a strange sensation, not knowing.  Unpleasant.  He had only just learned what unpleasantness felt like, one of those sensations more suited to man than angels.  Pleasure was still undefined.

_He will not wake until morning._

It was all he’d been able to offer Dean, and still the uncertainty had remained, not just in the guarded expression on Dean’s face but in his own mind, pulling at his thoughts with the softness of a spider’s thread caught on his cheek.  It was hardly a brush, utterly inconsequential against the chorus of angels ever in the back of his mind; not enough to hold him, or even slow him down—just enough to make him want to turn his head, to follow that shining trail as the car lumbered out of the parking lot, silver exhaust hanging in its wake.  The particles sparkled in the light of the weak winter sun.

Castiel watched until the vehicle disappeared beneath the snow-laden boughs of sleeping trees, and then he lifted his wings, hovering at the edge of departure for a long moment with uncertainty lingering in his mind.  He had a sudden premonition that Heaven’s assignment to watch over the Winchesters would be more complicated than he had expected, and in the instant before he vanished into wavelength he vowed to return more often—at least until he understood what he had missed in the shallow beat of Sam’s sleeping heart.


End file.
